Bush Says Plan Would Balance Budget by ’12

[brooklynite]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 — President Bush said on Tuesday that he would propose a plan that he insists would, if followed, achieve a balanced budget by 2012, the most optimistic he has been in at least five years, and he said the goal could be achieved without rescinding any of his big tax cuts.

In an op-ed article for the Wednesday issue of the The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Bush said his budget proposal for the 2008 fiscal year would for the first time project a deficit that disappears.

“The bottom line is tax relief and spending restraint are good for the American worker, good for the American taxpayer, and good for the federal budget,” Mr. Bush said in the article, which was online Tuesday night. “Now is not the time to raise taxes on the American people.”

Mr. Bush offered no specifics on how he intends to achieve a balanced budget, beyond declaring that his tax cuts had led to economic growth and generated large increases in tax revenue for the past two years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/washington/03bush.html?_r=1&ref=washington&oref=slogin

Op Ed is available at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009473

Gee, who knew it could be so easy? All Bush's successor has to do is maintain his policy of.....whell I'm sure it will be obvious.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. * announcing he has a secret plan to balance the budget in five years

has the earmarks of an economic "Pull my finger" program. More tax cuts. Less revenue. More spending. Yep, we'd be going in the "right direction" with that novel approach.

[Joe Bacon]

12. How much fairy dust do you have to inhale to believe President Peter Pan?

Love those Republicans who live in a LASSEIZ FAIRYLAND and keep telling us to CLAP HARDER so Tinkerbelle will spread lots of fairy dust on the budget to make it balance.

The Democrats live in the real world while the Republicans live in their Jesus Lasseiz Fairyland.

[VegasWolf]

18. Bush's new plan; eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all other

"entitlement" plans that people have spent their entire lives paying for with their taxes.

[rebel with a cause]

34. Exactly what I was thinking.

He is a reverse Robin Hood, Rob from the poor and give to the rich.

Well, just bless his heart. :sarcasm:

[rustydog]

22. Bush, where was this magical plan in 2003, 2004, 2005?

Hey Bush, what ever happened to your: "My WAY or the hiway bravado?"
Where's your "Texas swagger"?

[aggiesal]

32. Didn't we already have a balanced budget under Clinton?

And a surplus as well.

Why do we have to wait 12 years before the budget is balanced?

[SpiralHawk]

2. "Four years after I've settled into my vast Paraguay estate." - Commander AWOL

"It's so nice to be filthy rich. Too bad about you grubby proles, formerly known as citizens. You should have gotten into oil & munitions War Profiteering, like me and my republicon cronies."

- Commander AWOL

[Raiden]

6. I have one, and it's probably the same as Bush's...

Vote Democrat :kick:

[Wetzelbill]

3. that is pretty funny

:)

[Nickster]

4. LMAO! Is he practicing his standup routine? We have an old saying in Illinois and I'm sure it's in

Washington as well......fool me once, er, fool me once, er.....won't get fooled again.....

[The Count]

5. I also have a plan to fly, become invisible and repel bullets. In 3 hours.

All I know is, it requires closing my eyes for a while and it goes from there...

[FreeStateDemocrat]

7. Obviously, cut Social Security and Medicare and impose a national sales tax ? Any other guesses?

[Maeve]

27. Simple! Take the war OFF budget! Same with any other big expenses

But leave those tax cuts for the "have mores" intact!

It is to laugh....

[ToolTex]

8. Well sure, it is so simple. Balanced right after the economic collapse,

and following world depression, and then the third world war. That's his plan to get all the remaining money that is still left out there wasted in the hands of the masses.

[Eugene]

9. Nice. Bush leaves cleaning up the fiscal mess to his successor.

Meanwhile Bush intends to continue the war and dump hundreds of billions
of dollars into it.

[hippiechick]

10. bwaaaahahahaaa ...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I am reminded of this:

[Betty]

11. reminds me of the old Blackadder shows

where Baldrick would say "I have a cunning plan" and it would of course be complete nonsense.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

13. Bush also says he's a lying POS...

so you might want to take that balancing the budget promise with a grain of salt.

[gratuitous]

14. I thought Bush was going to have budgets balanced by 2009

Someone probably reminded His Chimpiness that the budget was still his responsibility in 2009, so he's pushed it back to 2012. And if not then, well, let history judge because it won't be his problem any longer, right?

Irresponsible weasel.

[salin]

37. then it was 2010... now 2012 - funny how it is always after *five* years in advance

given how bushco stopped including ten year projections and replaced them with five year projections - part of the earlier "cutting deficits" and "balancing the budget" was achieved on the assumption that his taxcuts would end (not be renewed - though he never said that. Heck, he may never have paid enough attention to briefings to even realize it. Irresponsible weasel, indeed!

[Javaman]

15. more blather from the blithering idiot*

See this is how it's going to go down. he* presents the plan, then he* leaves office, then when the poor sod that takes the post next time around and everything falls apart because of morons* "brilliant" plan, moron* can then say, "well, he didn't follow the plan".

What ever, just impeach the moron*, that would be the best plan ever.

[leftyladyfrommo]

16. I didn't know we had a budget.

Seems like we just spend huge amounts on really dumb things.

[AlGore-08.com]

17. Good grief. Back in 2000, Gore had a REAL plan to eliminate the budget deficit by 2012

:banghead:

[MasonJar]

19. What plan? The one which calls for him and his bud Cheney to

resign immediately?

[stray cat]

20. And destroy all Americans making less than 200,000 per year

[PurityOfEssence]

21. Great. Gasp back to worse than we were when you took over six years ago

What a triumph. Of course, the debt will have grown plenty, regardless of whether we can get over our yearly deficits anytime soon. Oh, 'twas a brief and fleeting moment when we actually had surpluses and were paying down the debt...

[superconnected]

23. He's the last person I want to "fix" our budget. Idiot republicans

and they are, will believe him. The truth is, it's either very very bad logic that will back fire, or total corruption where he robs us blind.

[Faygo Kid]

24. His push to achieve goal #3 - destroy the social safety net

Can anyone doubt how he intends to "balance the budget?" Clearly, by destroying social programs. Goal 1: Invade Iraq. Check. Goal 2: Drive wealth and power to an elite top 1/2 of 1 percent of earners and supporters. Check. Goal 3: Destroy the social safety net. He tried last year to destroy Social Security; this is a new tactic designed to achieve the same goal. And he will try to crush Social Security up until the moment he leaves office or dies, whichever comes first.

[truthisfreedom]

25. Okee-dokey... here's yer dang budjut. Ya just take the Treasury here and dump it into the hands

of the Military-Industrial complex and the Oil Industry, and then it's all balanced. See? Simple as pie!

[brentspeak]

26. Faith-based economics

[JerseygirlCT]

28. See, here's the plan:

I continue dicking around in Iraq until January 2009, then the next guy comes in and cleans up the mess. See? Problem solved! Wasn't that easy?

[tom_paine]

29. Well, goddamn! It's the Bushevik Five year Plan

I dare say it will be the right-wing equivalent of many Bolshevik Five year Plans.

"Toilet Paper production is up 600%,comrades! Ignore the lines for toilet paper!"

[teryang]

30. There is one school of thought that we won't make it to 2012...

...without a major economic crisis that makes the current economic projections heard on cable news the outlandish fantansies of aristocrats with Cayman island corporations and secret swiss bank accounts.

Today the corporate meme of the day was your real property, oil, gas, uranium, gold, etc., are worthless compared to American paper obligations. Does anyone really believe this? The short sellers at the big investment banks have to reverse the economic trends that evince themselves when they are on holiday. When they are on holiday, the derivative short selling meant to convince people that there is value to the federal reserve note, stops temporarily and things start assuming their market value. Virtually all of investment capital of this nation has been moved offshore in search of cheap labor and no regulations. The real means of production are simply gone overseas. Kevin Phillips and other historians contemporary and otherwise, as well as many economists, know that this is the symptom of a political economy in terminal decline. The capital is moving to the rivals who will surpass us. American aristocrats feel that as long as they get their dividend checks, who cares what happens to everyone else.

Bush knows everything he said in his little homily is complete bs, but that doesn't matter any more. This is beyond correction without an imminent end to the overseas military madness which has already cost a trillion dollars in wasted lives and resources. We are hemmorhaging severely, we cannot afford another day, let alone three to ten years more of this so called "war on terror."

Did you notice how Bush, as an aristocrat, is obsessed with "radicals and extremists?" He equates them with terrorism and always conjoins them in the same sentence of condemnation. Like most aristorcrats in 19th century aristocracies and empires, he is obsessed with the notion. It's almost as if the fear of the inequities in the aristocrats' favor is so great, you can smell it. For an aristocrat wars, prisons, and executioners are de rigeur.

[kentuck]

31. What's he doing trying to do the Congress' job?

His job is presidentin'. Ain't that hard enough for him ? Now he wants to tell Congress how to do their job? By 2012, if we follow Dubya's plan, the Repubs may get another chance for a Republican president? By then, the Democrats would have been handcuffed sufficiently enough not to get anything accomplished.

[maxsolomon]

33. he's going to cut the Pentagon's budget in half?

only way i can see it happening. i'm starting to like this malignant narcissist!

[knight_of_the_star]

35. How convienient

That would be four years after his term ends, when he would have no control over the budget whatsoever. That man is full of it.

[Imagevision]

36. Slick move, at least 5-10 million Boomers would be dead not being able to get presriptions

And then there's all those SSI SSDI benefit checks that will no longer be needed to be sent out.